


Hallucinating Again

by StarlightSystem



Series: Transcendence AU [12]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Depression, Dissociation, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Self-Hatred, Weirdly personal vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24610807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightSystem/pseuds/StarlightSystem
Summary: It's a beautiful summer's day in Gravity Falls. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping. A horrible demon named Dipper Pines huddles in bed, weighed down by more thoughts than a human mind could ever handle.It's happening again.
Series: Transcendence AU [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1372192
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50





	Hallucinating Again

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the [Transcendence AU](https://transcendence-au.tumblr.com/)! Partially inspired by [this comic by chommki](https://chommki.tumblr.com/post/620122856419999744/shes-dead).
> 
> Content warning for depression and dissociation.

_A breezy summer day avows  
_ _It cares not for what, when, and hows  
_ _For in its lovely sunny grasp  
_ _The girl will never cease to gasp  
_ _At all the myst’ry heretofore  
_ _Locked up inside a town abhorred  
_ _It calls, it trickles out to play  
_ _To ruin her dear brother’s day  
_ _Cause in his eyes the world can be  
_ _But pretty lies and destiny  
_ _Her innocence is bliss, you see  
_ _His loneliness, eternity_

It was a beautiful day in Gravity Falls, Oregon. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the Manotaurs were flexing. All the world seemed to join together to cavort in the blissful serenity of nature. A day of picnics, a day of barbecues, a day where illegal fireworks would be set off in spades.

Dipper Pines wrapped the sheets tighter around him and rolled over in bed.

Through the open window wafted a girl’s voice full of laughter and cheer. “Come on, Grunkle Stan, quit hiding! I’ve still got ten water balloons!”

“You’ll never find me!” came the response. “Do you think I escaped from that Columbian prison with nothing but dumb luck? Of course not! I’m a master of stealth!”

“Really? Cause I can hear your voice coming from the bushes!”

“What? No! You -” the second voice yelled, only to be cut off by a loud cackle and the sound of water balloons exploding.

The demon’s voice was much more subdued, and it came from the pile of blankets on the bed. “What am I doing?”

Barely a whisper, and yet the sound vibrated in the air, ringing in his ears with an otherworldly echo. It was impossible for him to speak anymore without making a mockery of the room’s acoustics. What a silly thing for him to miss.

“What am I doing?” he asked again to no one in particular, because no one was there.

He sucked in a cold breath and just kept going. It never stopped, his lungs never felt full, because he didn’t have any and the air wasn’t even moving, he was just gasping as a performance. It was a game, and he was losing.

“I don’t _want_ to do anything.”

There was a pounding in his head, starting at the base and working its way up. His temples ached. The space between his eyes felt tight. His skull felt like he was balancing a stack of books a mile high on top. It was so tiring, but he could not sleep.

Instead, his mind wandered. He thought about what he’d eaten for dinner the previous day -- bad idea, it had been a goat’s heart. He thought about the last movie he’d seen, which was Girl Crawls Out Of Television 2: The Sequel, and he felt scared again just thinking about it, and that was better but it was worse. He thought about who he used to be, and that hurt more than anything before. His chest filled up with a soul-crushing yearning. Filled up with a voice that just wanted to SCREAM at the top of his lungs, let his ungodly echoey voice announce to the world that “I want to go back, someone HAS to let me go back, it’s not FAIR!”

He didn’t do that.

“I keep sticking around to make myself feel better,” he whispered, almost on autopilot. “But then… But then I end up hurting them with my dumb luck.”

There was a bang from outside the window as Mabel accidentally knocked a door off its hinges with a particularly firm water balloon, and the laughter got worse. Loud, boisterous, insolent, poisonous. Dipper’s hands snaked out of the cocoon and pressed up against his ears; his ears which were too long now, too pointy, too weird to pass as human.

And now he couldn’t help but look at his hands, at the fingers tipped with claws which he’d already used so many times to tear open monsters that threatened his loved ones. Monsters he and his Mizar sought out because together they were strong enough to do something about them. Monsters that came by on their own because he inspired them to be worse.

“The truth is, most of them would probably live normal lives without cults or demons if I stayed out.”

He sneezed -- the dantiest, most innocent sound imaginable -- and the gravity in the room turned off. The books, the paintings, the photographs, everything floated up in a mess of garbage. He floated too, solidly in his blanket cocoon, watching the ceiling and walls get farther and farther away as he felt smaller and smaller.

A framed photo floated in front of him; a photo of a girl with brown hair, braces, a killer smile, and a shooting star sweater. Reaching out of the blankets, the demon took it in his hands and considered it.

“Isn’t your life a prime example? Full of weirdness and danger… all because of Dipper Pines, weirdness magnet.”

The room itself fell away, revealing the vast infinity of space. He drifted past the moon, past the stars, bouncing occasionally off of space junk and asteroids. He drifted until he could barely hear Mabel’s voice anymore.

“Then, like everyone else...”

He let go of the photo and watched it drift into the distance. Then he drew his head deeper into the cocoon so that it was completely covered.

“You’re gone.”

And the world kept turning. It spun around and around on its little axis like a top, violently and out of control, ripping through space at speeds unfathomable to humans. The stars flickered and lashed out with fiery tendrils capable of disintegrating entire civilizations in seconds. Particles locked in predestined love by the fundamental forces were torn apart as everything grew cold. Every minute, every hour, every day, every century, it marched on, faster and faster into oblivion.

All of this, he barely had the energy left to blink at. A demon, outside of time, outside of space, outside of this world. A demon, huddled in blankets made of cotton, of woven acrylic, of polyester knitted by human hands and passed through a chain of production, sale, and gift to eventually bring comfort to his lifeless body.

It was less than that, actually, and yet it was more. His body was dust, incinerated and scattered to the wind after Bill plunged his hand deep inside. Once his mind was made of chemicals leaping from neuron to neuron. Now, he _was_ thought. He was mind. He was magic, the purest kind. The energy that flows through the universe but arranged to spell out words and feelings and sin.

“Whoa, you’re still in bed?”

He was not flesh; flesh was impermanent. He was a being of pure energy that thought it might be funny to look like and feel like and remember being a 15-year old boy.

“It’s been hours… I was hoping you’d feel better by now.”

Energy that turned to chaos, energy commingling with entropy, energy that could level mountains with no effort, energy for the sake of existing and nothing more.

Evil, sinful magic taken physical form so it could wrap its hideous, impure arms around a stuffed lamb and hold onto it for dear life; not flesh but solidified energy clutching the doll close to the chest, feeling a little tickle under its chin from the lamb’s woollen head.

Feeling the heft of the bed comforter pressing him down into a place where things were real. Safe and warm.

Thinking.

Breathing.

Loving.

Living.

“Do you think you’d feel better if you hung out with us?  
Grunkle Stan and I were gonna go see a movie.”

He could kill them all as easily as he could pretend to breathe. He considered it each time the air was pushed out of his imaginary lungs and back into the world. He just. Could.

Almost.

Time tapped on his shoulder, gave him a little condescending wink, said “Hey buddy, you’re not powerful enough to do that yet. You’re made of energy, but you’re still just a fledgling. There’s so much more power out there for you to absorb, for you to make into you. One day you’ll be everything, but for now, I’ll have to ask you to wait.”

He was a concept, and time was nothing. Time is nothing, and a concept can’t be killed. To a concept without end, time was absolutely nothing. It was nothing, time was nothing, he was nothing, so he might as well already be god.

“Come on Mr. Grumpypants, you’re missing out.”

Finally, he poked his head out from beneath the covers. Night had fallen, and the room was covered in an inky darkness. Despite this he could see everything with perfect clarity. The empty bed across the room, the boy band posters, the trinkets on the table, the knots in the wood penning him in. It all looked about as lifeless as he did.

“It’s getting late, I don’t wanna leave you behind.”

He shivered, and drew in close to himself, maneuvering within the blanket cocoon such that he could hug his knees to his chest. This left his wings in an awkward position, and they ached at the base as if they were going to snap off. He maybe wished they would.

“I’m gonna turn the lights on, okay?”

A soft, yellow glow emanated from his eyes as the irises dilated, and it cast silhouettes against the far wall, moving and dancing like he was watching a shadow theater performance. He saw the girl prodding the boy who wouldn’t get out of bed, saw her kneeling by his side and whispering words he could almost hear.

Oh yeah. He’d seen this one before. It was pretty good… except for the ending.

There was the one with the two figures -- twins, he thought they were -- and it almost made him smile seeing how close they were. But there was a part where the girl got kidnapped so the boy’s powers could be released. It wasn’t fair. That wouldn’t have happened to her if he hadn’t been in her life.

“Geez, it’s a mess in here!”

The shadows shifted. One of the figures was a child, the other an adult. The child was loved and taken care of. She loved the one who raised her, but she’d also watched her parents die and it was all his fault. It wouldn’t have happened if he’d just stayed away.

“Can you hear me, bro-bro?”

A different child, a different set of twins. The same guilt of patricide, but this time his twin punished him for his crime, and golden blood began to seep from the walls.

“Oh no, Dipper, please don’t cry.  
Please,  
just tell me what’s wrong.”

The silhouettes got faster. There was the boy who was devoured by the other because he thought it would be the right thing to do; the one who later got kidnapped and tortured just for being friends with a demon. There was the girl he’d stolen from her community because they didn’t like him and his need for companionship was apparently more important than that. Why couldn’t he stay away? Why? Why was it more important for him to feel better than it was for them to be safe?

“And now you’re gone,” he whispered, and it surprised him because he forgot he could do that. There was so much under his control that it completely escaped him that he could part his lips and be heard.

Be heard by himself and no others.

“What do you mean? Dipper!”

Something invisible came upon the demon and he convulsed in his bed. His arms flopped out of the blanket cocoon, one of his legs dangled over the side, his wings collapsed inward, his head lolled to face the ceiling.

“You’re gone,” he whispered again, and he felt so powerful that he did it again. “You’re gone. You’re gone. You’re gone.”

Yellow tears streaked down his face and he shook. “You’re gone.”

There were no beds. There was no room. There was nothing in the world but him. “You’re gone.”

Something wiped the tears from his eyes, but he just cried some more to replace them. “You’re gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

There was a thud, and he stopped shaking.

* * *

Mabel shut the door behind her.

She collapsed against it, feeling the awful heaviness in her chest, feeling the sweat on her brow, hearing the moaning still coming from the other side of the door. Feeling the dread deep in her bones that came with being around a distressed demon.

“Are you okay?”

“Heck!” Mabel yelped, falling to the floor. “Don’t scare me like that, Grunk!”

He smiled at that, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I don’t know. Usually you’re up for a good scare. What’s wrong?”

She sighed, and buried her head in her hands. “Aw, it’s just... Dipdops. I think he’s having an infodump or something. He’s crying and the walls are bleeding and I know he was feeling bad this morning but I thought he’d be better by now but he’s so much worse and I don’t know what to doooooooo.”

He kneeled down and patted her on the shoulder. “It’s not your fault, sweetie. You know it just happened to him sometimes because he’s… you know.”

Mabel looked up, and her eyes were wet. “He’s a demon, you can say it.”

“Uh, I didn’t mean to, uh -”

Legs shaking, she grabbed the door handle and used it to stand up. “And I know he’ll get better. He always does. But he’s my bestest bro-bro in the whole world and I love him. I just want to help.”

“You told him we were going to see a movie, right?”

She put her hands on her hips and pouted. “Come on, that’s not gonna help him!”

He chuckled for some reason. “Not even if we watch those explorer movies he likes so much?” She didn’t respond to that, and he coughed into his fist. “Okay. Don’t you have some crazy magical bond stuff you do to make each other feel better or whatever?”

Mabel looked away from him and stared back at the door. “Yeah, I dunno. I thought if I came back I could help him again, but I just… Maybe it’s not up to me.”

He stepped back, an unreadable look crossing his face. “I think you lost me. You mean, like, he needs a therapist or something?”

“Yeah, sure. Something like that.” She paused, and cracked an insincere smile. “We can worry about that later. I don’t wanna be late for the movie. Go- go get in the car, I just need a minute.”

He watched her with narrowed eyes for a moment, then shrugged and turned away, plodding down the hallway, each step sounding like a sopping wet sock squelching against concrete. She watched him disappear into the labyrinth, and exhaled. The feeling in her chest was getting worse; heaviness turning to a sickly bubbling. She clenched her fists in frustration and bit back a sob. Another deep breath, another long exhale. Another look back at the door, and then she marched onward.

Mabel stepped through the back door into the night. The breeze tousled her hair and it fanned out, trailing behind her like a veil with every step she took into the yard. It was eerie without the sun’s gentle guidance; nothing at all like the place she remembered from that summer. Too much had changed despite all of their efforts to deny it.

She came to a stop in front of a large apple tree. It remained unbothered in the breeze; not even its fruit -- plump and ripe for the picking -- seemed to move at all. Mabel grabbed one and bit down into the flesh, sucked all the juice out of it, savoured the taste, relished in the memories it brought back.

They were his memories too. He’d come around someday, he’d remember and feel invigorated by it again instead of devastated. She still trusted him to the ends of the universe; trusted him to keep them safe, trusted him to come back again. She just had to accept that it might take a while.

Mabel sat beneath the tree and leaned up against a large stone that had her name on it. She took another bite from the apple, smiled, and tossed the core over her shoulder. One last look at the third-story window, through which anguished moans could still be heard.

She laid down flat and sank back into the earth.


End file.
